World War II Questions of the Day Daniel W. Blackmon IB HL History Coral Gables Sr. High.

World War IIQuestions of the Day

Daniel W. Blackmon

IB HL History

Coral Gables Sr. High

Essay of the Day

"Wars are caused by miscalculations of the aggressor and the failure of politicians and diplomats to exercise crisis management." Discuss the validity of this statement with reference to ONE twentieth century war. (1993) (HL)

Thesis

The statement is not valid for World War II

It is certainly true that Hitler miscalculated with his invasion of Poland, and that Chamberlain’s, Daladier’s and Stalin’s diplomacy failed.

Thesis

However, given Hitler’s determination to obtain Lebensraum for Germany, war was inevitable

The Crisis from Munich to Danzig

Following Anschluss, Hitler now decides to swallow Czechoslovakia. His pretext is the sizable German minority in the Sudetenland.

On Hitler's orders, the leader of the Sudeten Nazis, Konrad Henlein, demands autonomy.

The Munich Crisis

Hitler actually expected to fight his war against Czechoslovakia:

"We must always demand so much that we never can be satisfied."

The Munich Crisis

Hitler signs a directive for Operation Green, the invasion of Czechoslovakia on October 1.

The Munich Crisis

Chamberlain meets Hitler at Berchtesgaden and is told that Hitler would risk war to incorporate the Sudetenland.

The Munich Crisis

Chamberlain agrees in principle to Czechoslovakia's dismemberment and returns to consult with his cabinet. The Czechs are not consulted

The Munich Crisis

Neville Chamberlain still sees Hitler as simply trying to achieve national self determination for ethnic Germans.

He still agrees with his brother that nothing in eastern Europe was “worth the bones of a British grenadier.”

The Munich Crisis

Edouard Daladier of France believed he had little choice but to follow the British lead.

France simply could not fight Germany alone.

The Munich Crisis

Chamberlain meets Hitler at Godesberg only to find that Hitler is now pressing Hungarian and Polish demands on Czech territory as well as Slovakian independence.

Taken aback, Chamberlain returns to consult with his cabinet.

The Munich Crisis

The French begin mobilization and the British mobilize the fleet.

The Munich Agreement

Chamberlain, French President Eduard Daladier, Mussolini and Hitler agree to a German partition of Czechoslovakia.


Germany would occupy the Sudetenland, leaving Czechoslovakia without a defensive line and without the Skoda armaments factories.


France and Great Britain guarantee the new borders--surely a great comfort to the Czechs, who have still not been invited to the party.


His Majesties' Government is prepared to defend Czechoslovakian sovereignty to the last drop of Czech blood.


Hitler assures Chamberlain that he had no more territorial demands.


Chamberlain returns to Britain with the agreement and says he has secured "peace in our time.“This is the high point of the policy of "appeasement."


Churchill rightly pointed out that it made a great deal more sense militarily to fight for Czechoslovakia than it did for Poland.


Chamberlain is influenced by the insistence of his Imperial Staff that Britain was unprepared for war and needed time to rearm.


The Imperial Staff also argued (correctly) that Britain could not fight Germany, Italy, and Japan at once.

Britain must therefore avoid conflict in every theater in which it was possible.


The conditions for war would have been much more favorable in 1938 than in 1939, as any glance at a map would show. The Czech army and its equipment were of high quality, and the Skoda works a crucial addition to German armaments capacity.


In the opinion of the generals and of some subsequent historians, Germany could not have gone to war in 1939 without the addition of the Czech tank fleet.


Four of Germany's ten armored divisions in 1939 were equipped largely with Czech tanks


The Munich Pact convinced Stalin that collective security was not possible.

He suspected that Britain and France wanted to embroil him in war with Germany.

He decides to cut the best deal he can.


Germany occupied the Sudetenland on October 1, 1938

The Danzig Crisis

February 1, 1939, Beginning of a reversal of British policy. Chamberlain expresses unqualified support for French security.

The Danzig Crisis

The Imperial Staff submits a paper arguing that Home Defense required the territorial defense of France and that Britain must build a continental army.

The Danzig Crisis

This is a sharp reversal of policy.

Previously, the Imperial Staff had insisted on defending Britain via air power, and avoiding conflict with more than one potential opponent.

The Danzig Crisis

Their thinking is hard to understand.

If the RAF could fly from Britain to Germany or France, then the Luftwaffe could fly from Germany or France to Britain.

Europe does not have a roof.

The Danzig Crisis

In 1939, the Luftwaffe was the largest, most modern air force in the world.

The Danzig Crisis

Stalin's speech to the Eighteenth Party Congress, where he indicates he has no preference between the competing blocs of capitalist states.

Stalin did not comprehend the nature of the threat from Hitler.

The Danzig Crisis

Hitler violates his promise to Chamberlain.Germany absorbs Bohemia and Moravia while Slovakia becomes a German puppet state. For the first time, Germany has absorbed non-Germans

The Danzig Crisis

Chamberlain delivers a speech in Birmingham in which he states that Britain will resist an attempt to dominate the world by force.

He realizes that Hitler has deceived him (Gasp! Shock!)

The Danzig Crisis

In point of fact, the hardening public attitude in the West is that Hitler simply cannot be trusted, there is no point in further negotiation, that Hitler was bent on world domination and that he posed a very real and palpable threat to the very moral foundations of the West's way of life.

Hitler’s Miscalculation

Hitler does not comprehend this change in public opinion.


It was not rational to fight for Poland and not for Czechoslovakia;

Hitler had formed a contemptuous opinion of Chamberlain and Daladier.


Up to this time, Hitler has not miscalculated; Chamberlain and Daladier have miscalculated.

The Danzig Crisis

March 23: Germany annexes Memel from Lithuania.

Great Britain offers Poland a guarantee of independence; that is, war with Poland means war with Great Britain.

The Danzig Crisis

April 7: Italy invades Albania.

Britain and France offer Greece and Rumania guarantees of independence.

Denmark, the Netherlands, and Switzerland are added a few days later.

The Danzig Crisis

April 23: Hitler denounces his nonaggression pact with Poland.

The Danzig Crisis

May 3: Probable opening gambit from Stalin to Hitler:

Foreign Minister Litvinov, a Jew, is replaced by Vyacheslav Molotov.

Negotiations with Poland

Negotiations between Britain, France, Poland, and the Soviet Union, which ultimately break down.


Only the Red Army could provide support for Poland in a timely manner. Britain wants to include guarantees for the Baltic and Balkan states.


Stalin wishes to write a treaty that would permit him to "protect" client states on terms that he defines. The British, not surprisingly, are highly suspicious and refuse to agree.


The Poles also flatly refuse to permit the Red Army on their soil, on the grounds that they would never leave.


May 22: Germany and Italy sign the Pact of Steel.

Hitler believes that Britain and France are bluffing and that, faced with a wider war, they will blink first.


May 23: Hitler tells his generals that Poland must be attacked and destroyed as soon as possible.

He also announces that the rearmament program must be completed by 1943 or 1944.


The rearmament program would have allowed Hitler to “rearm in depth” and fight a protracted war of attrition.

Hitler expects to fight a local, brief war against Poland only.


Hitler again tells his generals that Poland must be destroyed. He sets August 26 as the date, and assures them of access to Russian resources.


He stressed British and French weakness. He emphasizes that they must "close their hearts to pity and act brutally, with the greatest harshness.“Hitler contemplates a race war in the East.

The Nazi-Soviet Non-aggression Pact: August 23, 1939

If either became involved in a war, the other would remain neutral. Secret provisions divided Poland into halves.

Russia received a free hand in Finland, Estonia and Latvia; Germany in Lithuania.


Russian interest in Rumanian Besserabia is recognized;

Germany declares to have no interest in Rumania and the Balkans


An economic treaty is also signed, in general favorable to Germany. It permits Germany to make large purchases of critical materials


Hitler is a winner from the pact, despite the high price.

He believes that Britain and France will not fight with the Soviet Union out of the equation.


Even if they do fight, he has cleared his Eastern flank.

He can quickly crush Poland and concentrate force against the West.


If he had properly followed through with this strategic situation, he would have won World War II.

After (but only after) defeating Britain, he could have turned his full attention to Russia.


Stalin, in the end, comes out a winner. His short term benefits are massive: he gains a large buffer zone between the Soviet Union and the German border;


he also gains time, which, considering the impact of the Great Purge on the Red Army, is enormously important.

Frantic efforts were made to prepare Russia for war; too little and too late.


Hitler's eventual invasion of Russia tends to disguise those benefits--Russia came perilously close to defeat.


For all its brutality, Stalin is pursuing a rational (if fundamentally mistaken) foreign policy designed to protect the Soviet Union.


Stalin believed that Germany and the West would tear each other to ribbons, allowing him to reap the rewards cheaply.

He also believed that he was doing to Britain and France what they tried to do to him.


British attempts to make a pact including the Soviet Union founder on (1) slow and inept diplomacy (2) intense suspicion of each other's motivations and most importantly


(3) the absolute refusal of Poland or Rumania to permit Soviet intervention--in the event, well justified, when one notes Stalin's systematic massacre of the intelligentsia and other leadership classes.


The Nazi-Soviet Non-aggression Pact is decisive. War is now inevitable. Hitler is implacable in his determination to destroy Poland. The Poles are determined to resist.


Great Britain and France are determined not to yield to further aggression because they now see Hitler as a direct threat to their own security.

Stalin is delighted to watch the capitalists destroy each other.


The Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact means that a regional war in Europe cannot now be prevented.


In the last analysis, the war will occur because Hitler wanted war.

Final Steps to War

August 29: German ultimatum delivered to Poland.

September 1: Germany invades Poland.

September 3: Britain and France declare war on Germany.

Final Steps to War

September 17: Soviet Union invades Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia.

October 12: Hitler establishes a rump state of Poland as an SS state.

Crisis Management was Irrelevant

Given Hitler’s determination to wage European war, Allied diplomatic errors from Munich on did not affect the issue of war or peace; they merely influenced the conditions under which it was fought.

The Miscalculations of the Politicians Came Earlier

Obtaining Lebensraum was Hitler’s foreign policy

Lebensraum was integral to his entire Weltanschauung (World View)—he could not have been deterred; he could only have been prevented.

From Mein Kampf

"One blood demands one Reich. . . . Only when the Reich borders include the very last German, but can no longer guarantee his daily bread, will the moral right to acquire foreign soil arise from the distress of our own people. Their sword will become our plow, and from the tears of war the daily bread of future generations will grow."

From Mein Kampf

"Germany has an annual increase in population of nearly nine hundred thousand souls. The difficulty of feeding this army of new citizens must grow greater from year to year and ultimately end in catastrophe, unless ways and means are found to forestall the danger of starvation and misery in time."

From Mein Kampf

". . . anyone who wants to secure the existence of the German people by a self-limitation of its reproduction is robbing it of its future." "Without doubt the productivity of the soil can be increased up to a certain limit. But only up to a certain limit. . . . "

From Mein Kampf

"No one can doubt that this world will some day be exposed to the severest struggles for the existence of mankind. In the end, only the urge for self-preservation can conquer."

From Mein Kampf

"For Germany, consequently, the only possibility for carrying out a healthy territorial policy lay in the acquisition of new land in Europe itself."

From Mein Kampf

"Never yet has a state been founded by peaceful economic means, but always and exclusively by the instincts of preservation of the species. . . . "

From Mein Kampf

"The foreign policy of the folkish state must safeguard the existence on this planet of the race embodied in the state, by creating a healthy, viable natural relation between the nation's population and growth on the one hand and the quantity and quality of its soil on the other hand."

From Mein Kampf

"Only an adequately large space on this earth assures a nation of freedom of existence."

From Mein Kampf"If the National Socialist movement really wants to be consecrated by history with a great mission for our nation, it . . . must find the courage to gather our people and their strength for an advance along the road that will lead this people from its present restricted living space to new land and soil, and hence also free it from the danger of vanishing from the earth or of serving others as a slave nation."

From Mein Kampf

"we National Socialists must hold unflinchingly to our aim in foreign policy, namely, to secure for the German people the land and soil to which they are entitled on this earth."

From Mein Kampf

"Much as all of us today recognize the necessity of a reckoning with France, it would remain ineffectual in the long run if it represented the whole of our aim in foreign policy.

From Mein Kampf

It can and will achieve meaning only if it offers the rear cover for an enlargement of our people's living space in Europe.

From Mein KampfFor it is not in colonial acquisitions that we must see the solution of this problem, but exclusively in the acquisition of a territory for settlement, which will enhance the area of the mother country, and hence not only keep the new settlers in the most intimate community with the land of their origin, but secure for the total area those advantages which lie in its unified magnitude."

From Mein Kampf

."The right to possess soil can become a duty if without extension of its soil a great nation seems doomed to destruction. Germany will either be a world power or there will be no Germany

From Mein Kampf

."."If we speak of soil in Europe today, we can primarily have in mind only Russia and her vassal border states."

The Hossbach Memorandum

November 7, 1937Hitler met with his top generals, Werner von Blomberg and Werner von Fritsch.Also present was Goering and his Foreign Minister, Constantin von Neurath.


The text is from the memorandum prepared by Friedrich von Hossbach, who was present.


“The Fuehrer then continued: The aim of German policy was to make secure and to preserve the racial community and to enlarge it. It was therefore a question of space.”


“The German racial community comprised over 85 million people and, because of their number and the narrow limits of habitable space in Europe, constituted a tightly packed racial core . . . and such as implied the right to a greater living space than in the case of other peoples.


“Before turning to the question of solving the need for space, it had to be considered whether a solution holding promise for the future was to be reached by means of autarchy or by means of an increased participation in world economy.”


“[Lengthy discussion] Thus autarchy was untenable in regard both to food and to the economy as a whole.


We were living in an age of economic empires in which the primitive urge to colonization was again manifesting itself; in the cases of Japan and Italy economic motives underlay the urge for expansion, and with Germany, too, economic need would supply the stimulus.


“For countries outside the great economic empires, opportunities for economic expansion were severely impeded.


“The question for Germany ran: where could she achieve the greatest gain at the lowest cost? “


“German policy had to reckon with two hate_inspired antagonists, Britain and France, to whom a German colossus in the center of Europe was a thorn in the flesh, and both countries were opposed to any further strengthening of Germany's position either in Europe or overseas”


“Germany's problem could only be solved by means of force and this was never without attendant risk. ”


“If one accepts as the basis of the following exposition the resort to force with its attendant risks, then there remain still to be answered the questions ‘when“’and ‘how.’”


“Nobody knew today what the situation would be in the years 1943_45. One thing only was certain, that we could not wait longer. ”


“For the improvement of our politico_military position our first objective, in the event of our being embroiled in war, must be to overthrow Czechoslovakia and Austria simultaneously in order to remove the threat to our flank in any possible operation against the west.”


“Actually, the Fuehrer believed that almost certainly Britain, and probably France as well, had already tacitly written off the Czechs ”


“The incorporation of these two States [Austria and Czechoslovakia] with Germany meant, from the politico_military point of view, a substantial advantage because it would mean shorter and better frontiers,


“the freeing of forces for other purposes, and the possibility of creating new units up to a level of about 12 divisions, that is, 1 new division per million inhabitants.”

Where the Politicians Miscalculated

German Re-Occupation of the Rhineland (March 7, 1936)

German Anschluss with Austria (March 13, 1938)

Where the Politicians Miscalculated

Note that the Hossbach Conference took place after the reoccupation of the Rhineland but before Anschluss.

By that time, Blomberg, Fritsch, and Neurath had been replaced with more pliable persons.

Reoccupation of the Rhineland

Germany denounces the Locarno Treaty and German troops reoccupy the Rhineland.


Great Britain is primarily concerned with Italy and Abyssinia. The British felt that the Germans were merely occupying their own soil.


France could easily have overwhelmed the 3 German battalions that marched into the Rhineland, especially since the Germans had orders to withdraw if the French resisted.


But Gen. Maurice Gamelin, the Commander-in-Chief, refusing to admit that the French Army was unready for offensive action, grossly exaggerated the size of the German army (he claimed 300,000 men in the Rhineland, where 3,000 would have been too many).


He told the government that it would require a general mobilization to eject the Germans. The government, with elections 6 weeks away, categorically rejected a general mobilization on the grounds that the public would not accept it.


Moral cowardice at the very top had cost France its best chance to prevent World War II.

Anschluss

February 12, 1938: Hitler invites Austrian Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg to Berchtesgaden to pressure him into accepting Nazis into his cabinet. Schuschnigg agrees.

Anschluss

March 9: Schuschnigg changes his mind and calls for a plebiscite on the issue of Austrian independence for March 13. All signs pointed to an overwhelming "Yes" vote.

This gives Hitler only 4 days in which to act.

Anschluss

March 11: Hitler demands and obtains Schuschnigg's resignation. Hitler's puppet in the Austrian cabinet, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, invites German troops to enter.

Anschluss

March 12: The German Army crosses the border to cheers and flowers, which partially disguises the frequent breakdown of German tanks and other transport.

Anschluss

March 13: Germany announces Anschluss, the annexation of Austria

The Moral of the Story

Hitler could easily have been stopped in the Rhineland and in Austria given the then existing balance of forces.

The Bankruptcy of Appeasement

Britain and France chose to appease Hitler—giving him what he wanted rather than fight a war they desperately wanted to avoid—in the Rhineland, Austria, and the Sudetenland.


By the time Hitler expanded his aggression into Moravia and Bohemia, it was too late to stop the path to war.


Seeking to avoid a war, they ensured war, and a far more bitter and bloody war at that.

World War II Questions of the Day Daniel W. Blackmon IB HL History Coral Gables Sr. High.

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